SPECIAL NOTICE
Malicious code was found on the site, which has been removed, but would have been able to access files and the database, revealing email addresses, posts, and encoded passwords (which would need to be decoded). However, there is no direct evidence that any such activity occurred. REGARDLESS, BE SURE TO CHANGE YOUR PASSWORDS. And as is good practice, remember to never use the same password on more than one site. While performing housekeeping, we also decided to upgrade the forums.
This is a site for discussing roleplaying games. Have fun doing so, but there is one major rule: do not discuss political issues that aren't directly and uniquely related to the subject of the thread and about gaming. While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them, and posting images that could get someone fired in the workplace (an external link is OK, but clearly mark it as Not Safe For Work, or NSFW). If you receive a warning, please take it seriously and either move on to another topic or steer the discussion back to its original RPG-related theme.

Is this a weakness of game design?

Started by Ghost Whistler, April 11, 2013, 04:10:44 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

flyingmice

Quote from: gleichman;644961Indeed. I think there are two reasons why Traveller is so tunnel visioned on this.

The first is the very human failing of looking at everything like thy're people in furry costumes. Because it takes us years of training to master our skills, he assumes that must apply to all creatures- and he doesn't see elephants training for battle. Thus he assumes they are bad at it, and depend completely upon their Stats.

The second is the grand child of D&D where Hit Points represented both skill and toughness. There there is no difference between a troll and a high level fighter (who may in fact have more HP, do more damage and have an higher AC). Gamers are in practical terms trained to consider all inputs of equal weight by the games they play, and they confuse that with reality.

Once again we agree completely.

It takes only two years to make a Navy SEAL, an extraordinarily competent warrior, using compressed training, ruthless selection, and constant repetition. There is nothing in that regimen which cannot be done in the wild - in fact the selection is even more ruthless.  

-clash
clash bowley * Flying Mice Games - an Imprint of Better Mousetrap Games
Flying Mice home page: http://jalan.flyingmice.com/flyingmice.html
Currently Designing: StarCluster 4 - Wavefront Empire
Last Releases: SC4 - Dark Orbital, SC4 - Out of the Ruins,  SC4 - Sabre & World
Blog: I FLY BY NIGHT

Ghost Whistler

Quote from: gleichman;644956Thinking about this a bit, if I were to use a skill + stat style die pool it woud look like this:

Stats would have three ranks:
      Below Average -1 dice
      Average +0 dice
      Above Average +1 dice

Skills would be ranked on at least a 1-5 scale, +1 dice per rank.

Yes this means that a Below Average Beginner is basically the same as unskilled, and I feel that's about right in reality. What they have managed to learn is mostly impractical fluff at best.

I *might* have a fourth rating for Stats representing a prodigy level talent that would apply only to a single specified skill...

I think that's counter productive. Players won't pick skills for a stat they start off 1 point down in.
"Ghost Whistler" is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Parental death, alien battles and annihilated worlds.

jibbajibba

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;644966I think that's counter productive. Players won't pick skills for a stat they start off 1 point down in.

They might if starting skills are determined randomly and you progress in the skills you use through play
No longer living in Singapore
Method Actor-92% :Tactician-75% :Storyteller-67%:
Specialist-67% :Power Gamer-42% :Butt-Kicker-33% :
Casual Gamer-8%


GAMERS Profile
Jibbajibba
9AA788 -- Age 45 -- Academia 1 term, civilian 4 terms -- $15,000

Cult&Hist-1 (Anthropology); Computing-1; Admin-1; Research-1;
Diplomacy-1; Speech-2; Writing-1; Deceit-1;
Brawl-1 (martial Arts); Wrestling-1; Edged-1;

gleichman

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;644966I think that's counter productive. Players won't pick skills for a stat they start off 1 point down in.

The idea that someone really bad in math ends up studying things other than math is not something I'd lose any sleep on. I'd consider it rather normal.

And of course if for some reason a character wants to run against the grain, he has that option. It will take him longer and require more effort to do less than other people- and again, that's the whole idea. No sleep lost here.


BTW: the example was given for the normal human range, and IMO the whole concept of dice pools systems like this falls apart outside that range.
Whitehall Paraindustries- A blog about RPG Theory and Design

"The purpose of an open mind is to close it, on particular subjects. If you never do — you\'ve simply abdicated the responsibility to think." - William F. Buckley.

The Traveller

Quote from: flyingmice;644959No, it *denies* "that mighty creatures with low skill exist". Any dangerous critter is skilled in combat. Your assuming something which is not there. Any troll who makes it to adulthood is a master at troll warfare. Elephants are very skilled at defending themselves. Leopards are extremely skilled at killing things. Why do you assume low or no-skill? These are things they do all the time. Why wouldn't they be skilled?
Sure, okay, ninja elephants. I'll remind you that I made this very same point early on in the discussion (my first post in the thread in fact, #3), but what you're saying here is that every large or powerful creature is of a high level of skill in combat, which just sidesteps the gaping hole in jibbajabba's system as well as being nonsense.

But since we're doing hypotheticals, let me posit that a troll might only be of the same skill level as a street tough or bully boy since trolls aren't noted for setting up fighting academies and so forth. When you're big and strong, you don't need to be skilled. Take the log and hit something until it stops moving. This isn't skill, but it is still formidable.

Quote from: flyingmice;644963Once again we agree completely.

It takes only two years to make a Navy SEAL, an extraordinarily competent warrior, using compressed training, ruthless selection, and constant repetition. There is nothing in that regimen which cannot be done in the wild - in fact the selection is even more ruthless.  
You should be aware that gleichman has taken to sniping from the sidelines since I put him on ignore for saying that all gamers who didn't follow his true path were limp wristed homosexuals unworthy of life or words to that effect, so whatever vitriol overflows his keyboard probably shouldn't be imbibed.
"These children are playing with dark and dangerous powers!"
"What else are you meant to do with dark and dangerous powers?"
A concise overview of GNS theory.
Quote from: that muppet vince baker on RPGsIf you care about character arcs or any, any, any lit 101 stuff, I\'d choose a different game.

gleichman

#35
Quote from: The Traveller;644971You should be aware that gleichman has taken to sniping from the sidelines since I put him on ignore for saying that all gamers who didn't follow his true path were limp wristed homosexuals unworthy of life or words to that effect, so whatever vitriol overflows his keyboard probably shouldn't be imbibed.

"or words to that effect"... what an interesting method of lying that is.

There have been many heated moments on this board for me, but I can't recall any time where I claimed anything about anyone being homsexual, nor have I even claimed that anyone was 'unworthy of life' except perhaps as a joke or maybe hyperbole.

Given that you have me on ignore, I can't ask you for a link to prove your point (which if true would need an apology by myself). Given that this is the second time you've posted this libel, I'm afraid I'm going to have to (for the first time in my life?) report a post to the moderators. Perhaps they can find the reference for me, or deal with you if none exists.
Whitehall Paraindustries- A blog about RPG Theory and Design

"The purpose of an open mind is to close it, on particular subjects. If you never do — you\'ve simply abdicated the responsibility to think." - William F. Buckley.

jibbajibba

Quote from: flyingmice;644948You are seizing on the one mistake he made - for some reason he replied to you that "To think low dex = low skill is to equate skill and stat again." as if to contradict something you said, but you had not stated that - to invalidate the rest of his argument, which does not depend on it. Essentially, animals have skills. Animals are way smarter than you give them credit for. Jibba-jabba is correct in his reasoning.

-clash

Me bad I was skim reading just before dinner he didn't say that.

I would say a couple of things. Your comments round animals having combat skills are entirely correct.
There might be a few large baby animals, walrus cubs, baby elephants that have high stats and low skill and yes i would expect a skilled warrior to be able to dispatch them.


Somewhat controversially I don't necessarily think that a game has to take the most realistic position. Realism isn;t always the most playable choice.

Whilst WoD'd stat/skill split is illogical it generally works well enough in play.

My current system has a lot of 'luck' So its 2d10 + stat (-3 to +5) + Skill (+0 to +10). Now I have been toying to reduce to d10 but I want a uniformed approach across skill and combat and I wanted more chance in combat. I used 2d10 to reduce luck over 1d20 or at least to pull in the top and bottoms ends to give a more predictable standard result.
No longer living in Singapore
Method Actor-92% :Tactician-75% :Storyteller-67%:
Specialist-67% :Power Gamer-42% :Butt-Kicker-33% :
Casual Gamer-8%


GAMERS Profile
Jibbajibba
9AA788 -- Age 45 -- Academia 1 term, civilian 4 terms -- $15,000

Cult&Hist-1 (Anthropology); Computing-1; Admin-1; Research-1;
Diplomacy-1; Speech-2; Writing-1; Deceit-1;
Brawl-1 (martial Arts); Wrestling-1; Edged-1;

gleichman

#37
Quote from: jibbajibba;644979There might be a few large baby animals, walrus cubs, baby elephants that have high stats and low skill and yes i would expect a skilled warrior to be able to dispatch them.

I would expect a highly skilled warrior (well enough armed) to dispatch even the mightest adults. Being an apex predator has its advantages.

Quote from: jibbajibba;644979Somewhat controversially I don't necessarily think that a game has to take the most realistic position. Realism isn;t always the most playable choice.

I don't think it's as hard as people make it out to be. Too often they just claim it's difficult and give up without trying.

Simple adjustments can correct rather serious failings, and people are capable of more than they think. The trick is getting them to try.
Whitehall Paraindustries- A blog about RPG Theory and Design

"The purpose of an open mind is to close it, on particular subjects. If you never do — you\'ve simply abdicated the responsibility to think." - William F. Buckley.

The Traveller

Quote from: jibbajibba;644979I would say a couple of things. Your comments round animals having combat skills are entirely correct.
I actually made that point in the first place, but how and ever...

Quote from: jibbajibba;644979There might be a few large baby animals, walrus cubs, baby elephants that have high stats and low skill and yes i would expect a skilled warrior to be able to dispatch them.
Okay let's take a highly skilled elephant and reduce it so it's five feet tall at the shoulder. How much of its danger was due to sheer muscle mass and how much due to skill now? Is it considerably more or less dangerous after bathing in the shrink ray?

Quote from: jibbajibba;644979Somewhat controversially I don't necessarily think that a game has to take the most realistic position. Realism isn;t always the most playable choice.
Agreed.
"These children are playing with dark and dangerous powers!"
"What else are you meant to do with dark and dangerous powers?"
A concise overview of GNS theory.
Quote from: that muppet vince baker on RPGsIf you care about character arcs or any, any, any lit 101 stuff, I\'d choose a different game.

jibbajibba

Quote from: The Traveller;644981I actually made that point in the first place, but how and ever...


Okay let's take a highly skilled elephant and reduce it so it's five feet tall at the shoulder. How much of its danger was due to sheer muscle mass and how much due to skill now? Is it considerably more or less dangerous after bathing in the shrink ray?


Agreed.

Okay vis a vis your elephant.
Strength is important because of the damage dealt.
Strong doesn't let you hit more often strong means your hits are deadly and you are hard to hurt because all of your muscles protect your vital organs.
A 5' tall elephant still have 4 times the mass of a 6 foot tall man.
Now I would expect a skilled warrior to hit the elephant more often but the elephants hits to do more damage.
Vis a vis skill the elephant's skill and combat technique depends on its size. It has evolved/been made by Jesus to be big and bulky and it uses that in combat against faster foes with more powerful weapons. So if you reduce its size its combat techniques won't work.
No longer living in Singapore
Method Actor-92% :Tactician-75% :Storyteller-67%:
Specialist-67% :Power Gamer-42% :Butt-Kicker-33% :
Casual Gamer-8%


GAMERS Profile
Jibbajibba
9AA788 -- Age 45 -- Academia 1 term, civilian 4 terms -- $15,000

Cult&Hist-1 (Anthropology); Computing-1; Admin-1; Research-1;
Diplomacy-1; Speech-2; Writing-1; Deceit-1;
Brawl-1 (martial Arts); Wrestling-1; Edged-1;

Wolf, Richard

Quote from: flyingmice;644963It takes only two years to make a Navy SEAL, an extraordinarily competent warrior, using compressed training, ruthless selection, and constant repetition. There is nothing in that regimen which cannot be done in the wild - in fact the selection is even more ruthless.  

-clash

"Selection" is the problem in this discussion.  It doesn't take only two years to make a Navy SEAL for some people.  It will just never happen because they've been selected out.  You can't say it's the training unless they are training everyone up to the same standard, but they aren't.  They aren't accepting most, and they are bouncing most of the ones they do accept.  There is no amount of pre-training that is going to result in them taking on a blind retarded midget.

You are just blurring the line of what "skill" represents here by including selection (even Natural Selection) as a factor.  If on your first day at the shooting range the instructor takes your rifle and sends you to file papers, in RPG terminology it's not because Natural Selection hasn't furbished you with the "skills", it's because you rolled a 3 Dex Ranger and need to go do something where your clumsiness is potentially less fatal.

flyingmice

Quote from: The Traveller;644971Sure, okay, ninja elephants. I'll remind you that I made this very same point early on in the discussion (my first post in the thread in fact, #3), but what you're saying here is that every large or powerful creature is of a high level of skill in combat, which just sidesteps the gaping hole in jibbajabba's system as well as being nonsense.

But since we're doing hypotheticals, let me posit that a troll might only be of the same skill level as a street tough or bully boy since trolls aren't noted for setting up fighting academies and so forth. When you're big and strong, you don't need to be skilled. Take the log and hit something until it stops moving. This isn't skill, but it is still formidable.

Shrug. This has turned into an argument. As arguments are not discussions, and thus are wastes of time and effort, I will bow out. You have your position, it works for you, and I leave you to it.

QuoteYou should be aware that gleichman has taken to sniping from the sidelines since I put him on ignore for saying that all gamers who didn't follow his true path were limp wristed homosexuals unworthy of life or words to that effect, so whatever vitriol overflows his keyboard probably shouldn't be imbibed.

I almost always disagree with gleichman, but I feel no need to insult or belittle him. His ideas are always thought out, and make sense if you accept his basic world view, which I don't. He's perfectly liable to call someone an idiot, but I've never heard him use being gay as an insult. On the other hand, I don't put people on ignore for disagreeing with me, either. I can always learn something. More data is always a good thing. :D

-clash
clash bowley * Flying Mice Games - an Imprint of Better Mousetrap Games
Flying Mice home page: http://jalan.flyingmice.com/flyingmice.html
Currently Designing: StarCluster 4 - Wavefront Empire
Last Releases: SC4 - Dark Orbital, SC4 - Out of the Ruins,  SC4 - Sabre & World
Blog: I FLY BY NIGHT

gleichman

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;644991There is no amount of pre-training that is going to result in them taking on a blind retarded midget.

While it's easy to exclude the extremes, what's interesting about the SEAL training is that they still can't predict who will or will not make the cut by looking at what RPGs would call stats. Many a strong, fast, powerful and smart guy has failed while many you might think would never make the cut did.

The reason for this is that they aren't looking for simply strong, fast, powerful or smart. They help, but what matters most is another factor- one that could be called 'Skill at become a SEAL' :)
Whitehall Paraindustries- A blog about RPG Theory and Design

"The purpose of an open mind is to close it, on particular subjects. If you never do — you\'ve simply abdicated the responsibility to think." - William F. Buckley.

flyingmice

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;644991"Selection" is the problem in this discussion.  It doesn't take only two years to make a Navy SEAL for some people.  It will just never happen because they've been selected out.  You can't say it's the training unless they are training everyone up to the same standard, but they aren't.  They aren't accepting most, and they are bouncing most of the ones they do accept.  There is no amount of pre-training that is going to result in them taking on a blind retarded midget.

You are just blurring the line of what "skill" represents here by including selection (even Natural Selection) as a factor.  If on your first day at the shooting range the instructor takes your rifle and sends you to file papers, in RPG terminology it's not because Natural Selection hasn't furbished you with the "skills", it's because you rolled a 3 Dex Ranger and need to go do something where your clumsiness is potentially less fatal.

Selection isn't a problem, it's a feature. Selection is what makes competent and lucky leopards well fed, and what makes incompetent or unlucky leopards the gunk between the elephant's toenails. Selection weeds out the unfit and those who can't learn. In nature, the unfit die. In SEAL training, they become perfectly successful electricians mates or helicopter pilots or helmsmen or gunners. It's still selection.

-clash
clash bowley * Flying Mice Games - an Imprint of Better Mousetrap Games
Flying Mice home page: http://jalan.flyingmice.com/flyingmice.html
Currently Designing: StarCluster 4 - Wavefront Empire
Last Releases: SC4 - Dark Orbital, SC4 - Out of the Ruins,  SC4 - Sabre & World
Blog: I FLY BY NIGHT

flyingmice

Quote from: gleichman;644993While it's easy to exclude the extremes, what's interesting about the SEAL training is that they still can't predict who will or will not make the cut by looking at what RPGs would call stats. Many a strong, fast, powerful and smart guy has failed while many you might think would never make the cut did.

The reason for this is that they aren't looking for simply strong, fast, powerful or smart. They help, but what matters most is another factor- one that could be called 'Skill at become a SEAL' :)

This is absolutely true. I've researched the hell out of this for various games, and author after author, many of them SEALs, say the same thing - that it's impossible to predict who will become a SEAL and who won't. :D

-clash
clash bowley * Flying Mice Games - an Imprint of Better Mousetrap Games
Flying Mice home page: http://jalan.flyingmice.com/flyingmice.html
Currently Designing: StarCluster 4 - Wavefront Empire
Last Releases: SC4 - Dark Orbital, SC4 - Out of the Ruins,  SC4 - Sabre & World
Blog: I FLY BY NIGHT